Smoke screen is amazing

[Joshewwah.2956]

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:Just got round to playing this recently and it's actually really, really good. With SA for the cooldown reduction trait and adventurer runes you can just about permastealth off dodges, heals and using death's retreat through smoke screen, which means I can ditch D/P entirely and take S/x without losing any stealth uptime which is brilliant. The projectile block is obviously amazing. I used to run binding shadow, shadowstep and RFI but I think smoke screen is actually more useful than binding shadow for matchups you don't expect to oneshot with the knockdown, since rending shade now provides AoE fear which means with an absorption sigil you still get the hard cc and boonsteal. Really impressed with it tbh.

Rending shade is only melee and how do you use rifle 4 to stack lots of stealth? It has high initiative cost in wvw/pvp

[Zacchary.6183]

@Joshewwah.2956 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:Just got round to playing this recently and it's actually really, really good. With SA for the cooldown reduction trait and adventurer runes you can just about permastealth off dodges, heals and using death's retreat through smoke screen, which means I can ditch D/P entirely and take S/x without losing any stealth uptime which is brilliant. The projectile block is obviously amazing. I used to run binding shadow, shadowstep and RFI but I think smoke screen is actually more useful than binding shadow for matchups you don't expect to oneshot with the knockdown, since rending shade now provides AoE fear which means with an absorption sigil you still get the hard cc and boonsteal. Really impressed with it tbh.

Rending shade is only melee and how do you use rifle 4 to stack lots of stealth? It has high initiative cost in wvw/pvp

Rifle 4 is a leap finisher, Kneel 4 is a Smoke Field.Basically you place smokescreen down on a wall and spam rifle 4.

[Joshewwah.2956]

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Joshewwah.2956 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:Just got round to playing this recently and it's actually really, really good. With SA for the cooldown reduction trait and adventurer runes you can just about permastealth off dodges, heals and using death's retreat through smoke screen, which means I can ditch D/P entirely and take S/x without losing any stealth uptime which is brilliant. The projectile block is obviously amazing. I used to run binding shadow, shadowstep and RFI but I think smoke screen is actually more useful than binding shadow for matchups you don't expect to oneshot with the knockdown, since rending shade now provides AoE fear which means with an absorption sigil you still get the hard cc and boonsteal. Really impressed with it tbh.

Rending shade is only melee and how do you use rifle 4 to stack lots of stealth? It has high initiative cost in wvw/pvp

Rifle 4 is a leap finisher, Kneel 4 is a Smoke Field.Basically you place smokescreen down on a wall and spam rifle 4.

I know that but I cant imagine you getting lots of stacks unless you're taking trickery

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@Joshewwah.2956 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Joshewwah.2956 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:Just got round to playing this recently and it's actually really, really good. With SA for the cooldown reduction trait and adventurer runes you can just about permastealth off dodges, heals and using death's retreat through smoke screen, which means I can ditch D/P entirely and take S/x without losing any stealth uptime which is brilliant. The projectile block is obviously amazing. I used to run binding shadow, shadowstep and RFI but I think smoke screen is actually more useful than binding shadow for matchups you don't expect to oneshot with the knockdown, since rending shade now provides AoE fear which means with an absorption sigil you still get the hard cc and boonsteal. Really impressed with it tbh.

Rending shade is only melee and how do you use rifle 4 to stack lots of stealth? It has high initiative cost in wvw/pvp

Rifle 4 is a leap finisher, Kneel 4 is a Smoke Field.Basically you place smokescreen down on a wall and spam rifle 4.

I know that but I cant imagine you getting lots of stacks unless you're taking trickery

I am taking trickery as I'm focussing more on boonrip and interrupts over raw spike damage in this build. I feel deadeye damage is already high enough, and going CS only really works for solo capping towers, for against enemies that don't know you're there already, or if you're defending a keep from a wall by picking off scourges, all situations where assassin's signet would be a better choice than smoke screen (honestly most of the extra damage on CS builds is due to this signet). I also don't like playing D/P offhand on deadeye as I don't feel it adds as much as S/x, and in general trickery is more useful to sword builds than CS. Personal preferences, but those are my reasons.

Smoke screen lasts 7 seconds which means you get 4 uses of death's retreat in that time assuming you start with 15 initiative. Sure, it's less useable in combat for stealth, but I still have stealth from mark, stolen items and elite so that's a non issue.

Rending shade being melee is great with smoke screen as most enemies will attempt to close the gap on a rifle deadeye, so that plus sniper's cover destroying projectiles generally forces melee. When they do enter melee you dodge for stealth, lay smoke screen and use death's judgement point blank. That either forces dodges and cooldowns or means they take massive damage, have boons ripped, and if they have no stab they get feared away and blinded from smoke screen. If they stay melee you can swap to S/x and be pretty safe between dodges and blinds, and if they kite out of smoke screen you can stay on rifle bud malice, knowing that smoke screen will destroy projectiles. The main classes that can counter this are classes with high damage ranged AoE like ele and scourge, but deadeye already counters these classes.

Obviously this won't work for all matchups (holo) and all circumstances (invuln) but it is still very, very good.

[Joshewwah.2956]

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@Joshewwah.2956 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Joshewwah.2956 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:Just got round to playing this recently and it's actually really, really good. With SA for the cooldown reduction trait and adventurer runes you can just about permastealth off dodges, heals and using death's retreat through smoke screen, which means I can ditch D/P entirely and take S/x without losing any stealth uptime which is brilliant. The projectile block is obviously amazing. I used to run binding shadow, shadowstep and RFI but I think smoke screen is actually more useful than binding shadow for matchups you don't expect to oneshot with the knockdown, since rending shade now provides AoE fear which means with an absorption sigil you still get the hard cc and boonsteal. Really impressed with it tbh.

Rending shade is only melee and how do you use rifle 4 to stack lots of stealth? It has high initiative cost in wvw/pvp

Rifle 4 is a leap finisher, Kneel 4 is a Smoke Field.Basically you place smokescreen down on a wall and spam rifle 4.

I know that but I cant imagine you getting lots of stacks unless you're taking trickery

I am taking trickery as I'm focussing more on boonrip and interrupts over raw spike damage in this build. I feel deadeye damage is already high enough, and going CS only really works for solo capping towers, for against enemies that don't know you're there already, or if you're defending a keep from a wall by picking off scourges, all situations where assassin's signet would be a better choice than smoke screen (honestly most of the extra damage on CS builds is due to this signet). I also don't like playing D/P offhand on deadeye as I don't feel it adds as much as S/x, and in general trickery is more useful to sword builds than CS. Personal preferences, but those are my reasons.

Smoke screen lasts 7 seconds which means you get 4 uses of death's retreat in that time assuming you start with 15 initiative. Sure, it's less useable in combat for stealth, but I still have stealth from mark, stolen items and elite so that's a non issue.

Rending shade being melee is great with smoke screen as most enemies will attempt to close the gap on a rifle deadeye, so that plus sniper's cover destroying projectiles generally forces melee. When they do enter melee you dodge for stealth, lay smoke screen and use death's judgement point blank. That either forces dodges and cooldowns or means they take massive damage, have boons ripped, and if they have no stab they get feared away and blinded from smoke screen. If they stay melee you can swap to S/x and be pretty safe between dodges and blinds, and if they kite out of smoke screen you can stay on rifle bud malice, knowing that smoke screen will destroy projectiles. The main classes that can counter this are classes with high damage ranged AoE like ele and scourge, but deadeye already counters these classes.

Obviously this won't work for all matchups (holo) and all circumstances (invuln) but it is still very, very good.

What do you do against when they pressure you from ranged?

[foste.3098]

@Joshewwah.2956 said:What do you do against when they pressure you from ranged?

Smoke screen blocks projectiles, last 7 seconds, and has a cd of 20 when traited (and this is the same trait that gives stealth on mark, and reduces the cd of shadow step and hide in shadows so you are traiting for it without question).You are literally immune to ranged damage given that you can chain smoke screen and sniper's cover, you even asking this makes me question if you ever bothered to read what the skill does let alone play test it.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@foste.3098 said:

@Joshewwah.2956 said:What do you do against when they pressure you from ranged?

Smoke screen blocks projectiles, last 7 seconds, and has a cd of 20 when traited (and this is the same trait that gives stealth on mark, and reduces the cd of shadow step and hide in shadows so you are traiting for it without question).You are literally immune to ranged damage given that you can chain smoke screen and sniper's cover, you even asking this makes me question if you ever bothered to read what the skill does let alone play test it.

What foste said pretty much. It's much better than you think it is, trust me. Wouldn't be surprised if staff daredevils started taking it in PvP.

[kash.9213]

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

@Joshewwah.2956 said:

@Zacchary.6183 said:

@Joshewwah.2956 said:

@Jugglemonkey.8741 said:Just got round to playing this recently and it's actually really, really good. With SA for the cooldown reduction trait and adventurer runes you can just about permastealth off dodges, heals and using death's retreat through smoke screen, which means I can ditch D/P entirely and take S/x without losing any stealth uptime which is brilliant. The projectile block is obviously amazing. I used to run binding shadow, shadowstep and RFI but I think smoke screen is actually more useful than binding shadow for matchups you don't expect to oneshot with the knockdown, since rending shade now provides AoE fear which means with an absorption sigil you still get the hard cc and boonsteal. Really impressed with it tbh.

Rending shade is only melee and how do you use rifle 4 to stack lots of stealth? It has high initiative cost in wvw/pvp

Rifle 4 is a leap finisher, Kneel 4 is a Smoke Field.Basically you place smokescreen down on a wall and spam rifle 4.

I know that but I cant imagine you getting lots of stacks unless you're taking trickery

I am taking trickery as I'm focussing more on boonrip and interrupts over raw spike damage in this build. I feel deadeye damage is already high enough, and going CS only really works for solo capping towers, for against enemies that don't know you're there already, or if you're defending a keep from a wall by picking off scourges, all situations where assassin's signet would be a better choice than smoke screen (honestly most of the extra damage on CS builds is due to this signet). I also don't like playing D/P offhand on deadeye as I don't feel it adds as much as S/x, and in general trickery is more useful to sword builds than CS. Personal preferences, but those are my reasons.

Smoke screen lasts 7 seconds which means you get 4 uses of death's retreat in that time assuming you start with 15 initiative. Sure, it's less useable in combat for stealth, but I still have stealth from mark, stolen items and elite so that's a non issue.

Rending shade being melee is great with smoke screen as most enemies will attempt to close the gap on a rifle deadeye, so that plus sniper's cover destroying projectiles generally forces melee. When they do enter melee you dodge for stealth, lay smoke screen and use death's judgement point blank. That either forces dodges and cooldowns or means they take massive damage, have boons ripped, and if they have no stab they get feared away and blinded from smoke screen. If they stay melee you can swap to S/x and be pretty safe between dodges and blinds, and if they kite out of smoke screen you can stay on rifle bud malice, knowing that smoke screen will destroy projectiles. The main classes that can counter this are classes with high damage ranged AoE like ele and scourge, but deadeye already counters these classes.

Obviously this won't work for all matchups (holo) and all circumstances (invuln) but it is still very, very good.

It sounds like we have nearly the same build and and similar use of it if not a different aim, except I rarely find myself stacking stealth apart from a quick double hold DR to drop squad focus for a few seconds. I do like the idea of smoke screen to bring it all close to mess around in though too save Initiative, I like Snipers Cover for roll and shoot but that gets costly if I have to keep it up.

[Curennos.9307]

It's nice to have underused utilities buffed, but this one is starting to feel like warr's Bull Charge - overloaded because it HAS to be, otherwise it's useless in the current state of the game.

Still, I'm curious to see how well it could work with d/p and the blind-on-stealth trait. Blindsfordaaaaaays.

[saerni.2584]

Unblockable projectiles. Ranged Non-projectiles. Resistance with melee attacks.

There are clear counters and Smoke Screen is less easy to hide than Black Powder. Still, a welcome buff to an under used skill.

[Turk.5460]

Smoke Screen is fantastic against Holosmiths and Rangers. The quick pulse allows for some hefty blinds. Been using it against holosmiths when they go into PF, and they just can't seem to understand why they're not blowing up a Thief haha.

[Kallist.5917]

I really do love it, its become one of 3 skills I swap in and out of my utility bar, but the projectile blocking doesnt seem to work quite right. With enough pressure, projectiles slip though it. Friends and I were testing it in the Guild Hall Arena the other night.

[alejandro.2093]

Specially in team fights this new smoke screen is so good, also in stalling a point for 7 secs

[Turk.5460]

My biggest gripe with Smoke Screen however is its 1/2 cast time. When other professions get PLENTY of much stronger utility abilities that are:

• Usable while stunned
• 1/4s or No Cast Time

[Turk.5460]

Haha I love it

[UNOwen.7132]

@"Turk.5460" said:Haha I love it

Yknow, its still funny to me that every time you see a Deadeye in WvW that knows what he is doing, they simply never kneel because skirmishing shot is the best skill to use. Which feels wrong, but three-round burst is bad ever since the nerfs I guess.